Before I start this post - thanks so much to people who came to Karaoke. It was mostly people I already knew, but one reader, Curtis, came. I thought it was totally awesome that he read about Karaoke here and decided to go. Even better, he nailed Guns ‘N Roses’ Welcome to the Jungle. Also in attendance were my brother and his friends, Steve, Anissa, and Dan from work, and Todd and Doug who helped me run the show.

I had no idea what I was getting into. Things like “hey, I should probably have music for when no one is karaokeing” never even occurred to me. All I had was the leaked copy of Jay-Z’s Kingdom Come, so I kept playing that. There was silence, there was no crossfading. That part of the show was a disaster. I also had no idea how to hook stuff up to their system, so the first hour was spent doing that. I felt really bad for people who came during that part.

Finally things got rolling, although I think only 4 people I didn’t know sang songs. It wasn’t too busy because the weather was cold.

Highlights included killing the scene with Todd. We sang a bunch of songs (some of them twice). One of the bartenders named Tony tried to sing “I wanna sex you up”, but even with the help of Todd and I we couldn’t figure it out.

The best part was when these drunk ghetto mexican guys came up and wanted to freestyle. They were giving me crap about my tiny laptop and stuff, but I played a beat for them. They started freestyling and then passed the mic to me. I was pretty intimidated - they sounded good and I’d never freestyled for anyone, let alone in public on a microphone. I had no option, though - this is one of those situations where bombing looks better than refusing to sing.

I started off really strong, and it kept getting better. Honestly it was probably one of my best freestyles ever and it probably seemed written. Even as it was happening all I could think of was “oh my god this is going so good - don’t screw it up”. I finished my turn and passed the microphone back. It was probably one of the best moments of my life - I’ve practiced freestyling every day since I decided to learn how to rap 6 years ago, and it paid off! Woo! I did it a few more times after that, but they weren’t as good as that first one.

Anyway, it’s tired and I’m rambling. Next week will be a much more polished operation - come out and sing / rap / dance with me!